… living the beautiful tension between what is, and what will be …

Shifting Shore Lines

They say ‘opposites attract’. I’m no longer certain of that as a blanket statement, but I do know that others can have the same heartbeats and passion as each other while at the same time being completely opposite in approach or personality.

My “bestie” Meg, shares a lot of the same passions and heart for Jesus and people as I do, but she is SO different from me. So different. She is as introverted as I am extroverted, short as I am tall, fair skinned as I am brown, and smirks inwardly as much as I do outwardly.

When the Lord is changing her, He works in her slowly and steadily. It will be months sometimes before she can put a concept into words as she grows. But she grows oh so beautifully. If she was an ocean shoreline, the Lord is the lapping waves. Come back in 10 years and you will have noticed how the shoreline has changed shape dramatically.

When the Lord is working in me, it’s more like bursts and spurts, and loud explosions of ‘ah ha’ moments. I can almost immediately articulate what the Lord is showing me. If I was an ocean shoreline, then the Lord would be the breakers that crash against the shore. In 10 years, my shoreline all have changed just as much as Meg’s as the waters shape our hearts.

Sometimes waves lap, and other times they break, but what matters is that shorelines change. It’s been easy for me over the years to either get frustrated with Meg’s process, or envy it. And hers with mine. There have also been times since when the Lord has worked in my life like a lapping wave, and Meg’s example has helped me to not fear the Lord’s quiet working. He isn’t a God to be put in a box, and in different seasons He speaks and works differently in us and in others. The key is not expecting others journeys to look like our own. As believers, Jesus is the journey we all say ‘yes’ to. The evidence of His work is what we should be looking for in each other – not our similarities or differences.

We have each been woven together by the Lord – He knows us deeply. And He knows how we can best hear Him. He puts friends in our lives that are different from us so that we can learn about and meet a different side of how the Lord works and loves. Differences are not for comparison or frustration, but for appreciation and stretching. If the world were filled with people who all related to life just like you, how boring would that be?

Unity doesn’t come from uniformity, but diversity. You don’t get unity by combining two of the same things. You create unity by connecting diversity with a common thread. For Meg and I, that unifying thread has been Jesus. I need her diversity and she needs mine.